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Comment Pre-emptive waste (Score 1) 276

by scott_karana (#31181256) Attached to: Mozilla Debates Whether To Trust Chinese CA

While his concern is very real, if Firefox removes trust for that CA it loses market share in China.
And if that happens, then Firefox themselves have negated their own security benefits.
I think it's prudent to keep an eye on CNNIC for this very issue, but until suspect behavior is detected, I think that any rash moves on the part of Mozilla could be worse than what's currently seen.
Earth

Geoengineering a Snow-Free Winter Fails In Moscow 202

Posted by timothy from the anthropogenic-warming-is-hard dept.
dinoyum writes "Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's promise of a winter without snow in the capital city has fallen short. While cloud seeding is not a new concept for Russia, often used on major holidays, geoengineering snow has never been done to that magnitude. Carrying off the $6 million procedure required jets to spray silver iodide into coming clouds, ensuring that all precipitation fell before it reached the capital. However a combination of disrupted radar, wind control, and faulty weathermen have been blamed by Luzhkov for his failed attempt at playing with mother nature. For now, Russia can go back to enjoying snow."
Education

The US Economy Needs More "Cool" Nerds 453

Posted by kdawson from the we-be-cool dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Lohr writes in the NY Times that the country needs more 'cool' nerds — professionals with hybrid careers that combine computing with other fields like medicine, art, or journalism. Not enough young people are embracing computing, often because they are leery of being branded nerds. Educators and technologists say that two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools. Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, says Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation adding that the Advanced Placement curriculum concentrates too narrowly on programming. 'We're not showing and teaching kids the magic of computing,' Cuny says. The NSF is working to change this by developing a new introductory high school course in computer science and seeking to overhaul Advanced Placement courses as well. The NSF hopes to train 10,000 high school teachers in the modernized courses by 2015. Knowledge of computer science and computer programming is becoming a necessary skill for many professions, not only science and technology but also increasingly for marketing, advertising, journalism and the creative arts. 'We need to gain an understanding in the population that education in computer science is both extraordinarily important and extraordinarily interesting,' says Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google. 'The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.'"

Comment Re:DNA samples/Chips in fingertips? (Score 2, Insightful) 131

by scott_karana (#30517628) Attached to: Malware and Botnet Operators Going ISP

Most sane datacenters will be extremely proactive about dealing with abuse complaints about spam, to say nothing about botnets, since they're the ones providing the IPs to the customers.
Capitalism typically makes it hard on the baddies here: datacenters do NOT want to lose saleable IPs to long-lasting blocks.

Comment They could keep it without promoting it... (Score 1) 219

by scott_karana (#30293108) Attached to: Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience

It's not like it would have been hard for them to acknowledge that it's just "popular myth" or something, and keep all the rest of their little attention-drawing page as it is.
People like idle little bits of trivia, even if they know there's no scientific basis.
"A+ people are pretty! Like me!" et cetera.
Biotech

Evolution's Path May Lead To Shorter, Heavier Women 411

Posted by kdawson from the short-but-neither-brutish-nor-nasty dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Yale University researchers believe that if evolutionary pressures of sexual selection and reproductive fitness continue for another 10 generations, the trends detected in their study may mean that the average woman in 2409 AD will be 2 cm shorter, 1 kg heavier, will bear her first child five months earlier, and enter menopause 10 months later. 'There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans,' says Stephen Stearns of Yale University. 'That's just plain false.' Stearns and his team studied the medical histories of 14,000 residents of the Massachusetts town of Framingham, using medical data from a study going back to 1948 spanning three generations, and found that shorter, heavier women had more children than lighter, taller ones. Women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol were also more likely to have large families as were women who gave birth early or had a late menopause. More importantly, these traits are then passed on to their daughters, who also, on average, had more children. The study has not determined why these factors are linked to reproductive success, but it is likely that they indicate genetic, rather than environmental, effects. 'The evolution that's going on in the Framingham women is like average rates of evolution measured in other plants and animals,' says Stearns. 'These results place humans in the medium-to-slow end of the range of rates observed for other living things.'"
Education

Student Loan Interest Rankles College Grads 1259

Posted by kdawson from the loan-arranger dept.
theodp writes "Like many recent college grads, Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt — he owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad school. But what's really got Lee angry are the high interest rates on his government-backed student loans. 'The rate for a 30-year mortgage is around 5%,' Lee said. 'Why should anyone have to pay 8.5%? The government has bailed out homeowners. It's bailed out big businesses. Why can't it also help students?' Not only that, federal student loans are the only loans in the nation that are largely non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, have no statutes of limitations, and can't be refinanced after consolidation, so Lee can forget about pulling a move out of the GM playbook. And unlike mortgages on million-dollar vacation homes, student loans have very limited tax deductability. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education blamed Congress for the rates which she conceded 'may seem high today,' but suggested that students are a credit-unworthy lot who should thank their lucky stars that rates aren't 12% or higher. Makes one long for the good-old-days of 3% student loans, doesn't it?"

Comment No engine. (Score 1) 496

by scott_karana (#29563113) Attached to: '09 Malibu Vs. '59 Bel Air Crash Test

Careful viewers will notice that there is no engine installed in the Bel Air.
I don't think the test is particularly enlightening, based on this fact. Sure, the engine block would still end up in the cabin, but its mass would have helped slow the crumpling of the hood.

All in all, an underwhelming "experiment".

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